THE FALL OF THE ASANTE EMPIRE

A cool and unbiased effort to hack through the undergrowth of myth, ignorance, and political correctness that continues to obscure accounts of the relationship between African kingdoms and colonial powers during the 19th century. It's also an exciting story. Edgerton (Anthropology and Psychology/UCLA; Sick Societies, 1992) uses mostly secondary sources to describe the conflict between the British and the Asante Empire that occupied modern-day Ghana. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Asante Empire was the most powerful state in West Africa, ruling over more than three million people (more than half as many as there were in the United States at the time, Edgerton points out). Its wealth was based on its gold resources, derived from some 40,000 gold mines. This enabled the kingdom to buy guns and to establish its dominion over 40 other kingdoms. It also developed a highly disciplined army and an effective bureaucracy. It was, however, dependent on slaves (both lower-born Asantes and captives from other tribes) for mining and agriculture, and its civilization was characterized by frequent public executions that amounted, in the eyes of European visitors, to human sacrifices. The British view of the Asante was heavily influenced by British traders and by some of the tribes opposed to the Asante. So, while for much of the period the Asante genuinely wished to live at peace with the British, the latter saw the Africans as bloodthirsty, untrustworthy, and an obstacle to their own imperial ambitions. Much of the book is about the British efforts to conquer the Asante, during which the British sustained several defeats and gained several narrow victories. By the 1900s, the Asante power was broken, and trade once again began to flow freely. An intelligent and compassionate account of mutual incomprehension, one-sided hostility, and a kingdom that, despite its considerable attainments, was doomed once the British had decided to bring it under control.